United States yearbook - 1982 (1)

372 Labor Force, Employment, and Earnings
Labor fo rc e .—According to CPS definitions, the total labor force comprises the Armed Forces
and the civilian labor force. The latter comprises all civilians in the noninstltutional population 16
years and over classified according to the criteria below: Employed persons comprise (a) all civilians
who, during the reference week, did any work for pay or profit (minimum of an hour’s work) or
worked 15 hours or more as unpaid workers In a family enterprise, and (b) all persons w ho were
not working but who had jobs or businesses from which they were temporarily absent for noneconomic
reasons (illness, bad weather, vacation, labor-management dispute, etc.). Unemployed persons
comprise all civilians who had no employment during the reference week, who made specific
efforts to find a job within the previous four weeks (such as applying directly to an employer, or to a
public employment service, or checking with friends) and who were available for work during that
week. Persons on layoff from a job or waiting to report to a new job within 30 days are also classified
as unemployed. All other persons, 16 years old and over, are “ not in the labor force.”
Beginning in 1982, changes in the estimation procedures and the introduction o f 1980 census
data caused substantial increases in the population and estimates of persons in all labor force categories.
Rates on labor force characteristics, however, were essentially unchanged. In order to
avoid major breaks in series, some 30,000 labor force series were adjusted back to 1970. The
effect of the 1982 revisions on various data series and an explanation of the adjustment procedure
used are described in "Revisions in the Current Population Survey in January 1982” , in the February
1982 issue of Employment and Earnings. The revisions did not, however, sm ooth out the
breaks in series occurring between 1972 and 1978 that are described above, and data users
should make allowances for them in making certain data comparisons.
Hours and earnings.—Average hourly earnings, based on establishment data, are gross earnings
(i.e., earnings before payroll deductions) and include overtime premiums; they exclude irregular
bonuses and value of payments in kind. Hours are those for which pay was received. W ages and
salary from the CPS consist of total money received for work performed by an employee during the
income year. It includes wages, salary, Armed Forces pay, commissions, tips, piece-rate payments,
and cash bonuses earned before deductions were made for taxes, bonds, union dues, etc. Persons
who worked 35 hours or more are classified as working full-time (see table 644).
Industrial and occupational g ro u p s.— Establishments responding to the establishm ent survey
are classified into Industries on the basis of their principal product or activity (determined by annual
sales volume) in accordance with the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) Manual, O ffice o f Management
and Budget; 1972 is the latest issue. The SIC is a classification structure fo r the entire
national economy. The structure provides data on a division and industry code basis, according to
the level of industrial detail. For example, manufacturing is a major industrial division; food and kindred
products (code 20) is one of its major groups. One of the ways this group is further divided is
into meat products (code 201) and meat packing plants (code 2011). Periodically, the SIC is revised
to reflect changes In the industrial composition of the economy.
Changes in occupational and industry groupings used in classifying data from the CPS household
Interviews were caused by the comprehensive revision in classification of occupations and industries
for the 1970 census, and from inclusion of a question on major activities or duties in the December
1971 CPS. As a result, comparisons of occupational employment levels between 1971-
1972 and prior periods and between those two years should be made with caution. The 1972 data,
however, are comparable with those for later years.
P roductivity.— BLS publishes measures of productivity under two major programs which measure
the relationship between production and one factor of input, labor time. The first program Is
concerned with measures relating to private business as a whole and its various subsectors; the
second provides measures for selected specific industries and various functional areas of the Federal
civilian government. Data for the first program are published quarterly in the BLS press releases,
Productivity and Costs: Private Business, Nonfarm Business, and Manufacturing Sectors,
and Productivity and Costs: Nonfinanciai Corporate Sector. Data for the second program are published
annually in the BLS Bulletin, Productivity Indexes for Selected Industries. Conceptual and
background information concerning the Federal-sector measures appears in Monthly Labor Review,
Nov. 1974. Detailed information on methods, limitation, and data sources for both programs appears
in BLS Handbook of Methods, BLS Bulletin 1910 (1976), chapters 30 and 31.
Labor tu rn o ve r.— Labor turnover is the gross movement of wage and salary workers into and
out of employed status with respect to individual establishments. This movement, relating to a calendar
month, is divided into two broad types: Accessions (new hires and rehires), and separations
(quits, layoffs, and terminations). The data cover all workers, temporary or permanent, and full- or
part-time.
Unions.— As defined here, unions include all affiliates of the AFL-CIO, all unaffiliated national
unions, and all unaffiliated unions which are party to collective bargaining agreements w ith different